All Leather, “When I Grow Up, I Wanna Fuck Like a Girl” (Dim Mak; 2010)

Justin Pearson is best known for screaming incomprehensibly and churning out gnarled bass riffs for sci-fi grindcore bands like The Locust and Holy Molar. But All Leather—a collaboration between Pearson, Nathan Joyner of Some Girls and Jung Sing of Maniqui Lazer—represents a change of pace for San Diego’s most provocative scenester.

Trading blast-beats for the bone-rattling thump of a programmed kick drum, All Leather offers rather danceable fare on their debut album. With its propulsive bass and straightforward disco beat, “Dear Mother Nature, Drop Dead” is downright club-worthy. But if that sounds disappointing to hardcore Locust fans, rest assured that All Leather isn’t holding back. The squealing electronics of the title track are wonderfully harsh, and “I Do It With My Prick Out” grinds along like a chainsaw chopping into sheet metal, even if the song titles on this 23-minute album aren’t nearly as clever as, say, the Locust classic “Get Off the Cross, the Wood is Needed.”

It’s about time that Pearson added techno to his arsenal of noise terror. Other bands gave his fans an excuse to flail around and join the pit, but When I Grow Up finally gives them something to dance to.

This review was published in this week’s issue of San Diego CityBeat. (Note: My editor cut what I thought was a pointed, if wordy, comparison in the “goes well with” section: “Slamming your head repeatedly against a brick wall.”)